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Jean Rodier: un precurseur et un pere pour 1’hydrologie tropicale 11

With this background, Jean Rodier became the reference hydrologist, a specialist on Africa, carrying out several assignments in Guinea, Wory Coast, Mali, Haute Volta, Gabon, etc., to prospect for dam sites and water projects of any kind and to undertake the preliminary hydrological studies necessary for such projects.

When it was created in 1958 he became the first head of the Hydrological Department of EDF-DAFECO. For these reasons, his name was associated with the hydrological studies for the main hydropower dam projects at that time in West and Central Africa: the Ayame dam in the Wory Coast on the Bia, the Kouilou dam at Sonda (that was never finished) in the Congo, the Koussou dam on the Bandama in the Wory Coast and the Edea hydroplant on the Sanaga in Cameroon. But even at that time, Jean Rodier deviated from the hydropower purpose in hydrology, and came into touch with morę varied hydrological problems, such as studies of the navigability of large African rivers or the hydrological potential for water supplies for large African towns, dealing with discharge forecasting. He was at that time an expert in tropical hydrology, much sought-after by international organizations (United Nations, WMO, UNESCO) and private design offices.

But his involvement in tropical hydrology was confirmed and strongly reinforced when EDF-DAFECO asked him, by the end of 1949, at the reąuest of Orstom, to set up and be the head of hydrological studies in this newly created organization.

To begin with he had to build up a hydrological department for the French territories and sub-divisions overseas, that developed the hydrometrie network indispensable to the development of these countries. This Hydrological Department of Orstom and its local sections was the embryo of most of the national departments now working in French-speaking Africa. At the dawn of independence, it controlled morę than 800 gauging stations, eąuipped with Staff gauges and automatic recorders.

When the installation of most of the hydrological network was completed, a Central Hydrological Office was created in Paris, in charge of research projects. There were two sections, one for basie research and the other for applied research, which were managed respectively by Marcel Roche and Pierre Dubreuil. At this time, the naturę of hydrological studies carried out by the Central Hydrological Office and the overseas sections was extremely varied and covered the whole thematic field of hydrology, according to the approach in force at that time. **Without detailing those, let us notę that as early as 1953, the Government of West Africa asked the Hydrological Section of Orstom to study the first 10 elementary catchments, through the method then called "analytic". These catchments were ąuickly connected with a lot of others, sińce the synthesis of the data collected from these catchments, published in 1972 and signed by Pierre Dubreuil, gathered data from 272 of them. This thematic approach to hydrology, through the study of representative catchments, then experimental ones, fed later the main part of the scientific output of Jean Rodier. During his career, Jean Rodier also undertook prestigious duties for and received accolades from the main international organizations in the hydrological field. He was:

-    a member of the college of experts of UNESCO for the hydrology of arid zones in 1952;

-    a member of the Technical Committee of the Societe Hydrotechniąue de France from March 1955;

-    the inter-African coordinator for hydrology of the Commission for Technical Cooperation in Africa from 1958 to 1965;